Sorry but you're completely misinterpreting the gist of my post. The idea is that no person in a sudden fit of rage can decide to suddenly shoot down their neighbour because their dog is pissing on their yard. Police officers, rangers, etc - these are all people with strict protocols and rules who have others watching them at all times. (commonly speaking of course)

Again it's not about banning the guns, it's about giving people the idea that you shouldn't just own a gun for the sake of owning a gun. Or that you shouldn't handle a gun whenever you feel like it. You on purposely put extra weight on the responsibilities that can come with a gun so that people will not want said gun unless they are truly convinced they can handle it and that they can keep it away from others who are unqualified and uneducated to handle a gun. (So for example not wanting a random teenage kid suddenly taking daddy's gun.)_________________No one is every truly alone with pizza.

Sorry but you're completely misinterpreting the gist of my post. The idea is that no person in a sudden fit of rage can decide to suddenly shoot down their neighbour because their dog is pissing on their yard. Police officers, rangers, etc - these are all people with strict protocols and rules who have others watching them at all times. (commonly speaking of course)

I wasn't talking about police/rangers/etc. They are government employees and are not your standard citizen. They also aren't required to follow standard firearms laws, in that they carry loaded firearms and also have access to a number of weapons that are prohibited to normal civilians, such as spring loaded batons, tasers, fully automatic weapons, etc.

Your example of suddenly deciding to shoot a neighbour because their dog is pissing on your lawn is somewhat absurd. If someone is mentally unhinged enough to do such a thing, could they not just... stab the neighbour? Torch the neighbour's house? Run them down with a car? It's not like someone who is crazy enough to shoot someone over such a minor issue is going to just stop being crazy if they don't have a gun. I don't buy that people randomly fly into homicidal fits of rage for no reason whatsoever short of mental illness.

Yinello wrote:

Again it's not about banning the guns, it's about giving people the idea that you shouldn't just own a gun for the sake of owning a gun. Or that you shouldn't handle a gun whenever you feel like it. You on purposely put extra weight on the responsibilities that can come with a gun so that people will not want said gun unless they are truly convinced they can handle it and that they can keep it away from others who are unqualified and uneducated to handle a gun. (So for example not wanting a random teenage kid suddenly taking daddy's gun.)

That is why I advocate a licensing program and guidelines similar to my own country's. You have to take a safety course with a final exam. You have to get a criminal background check. You have to store firearms stored in an inoperable and unloaded fashion (except in certain wilderness circumstances where you would need one quickly, such as when traveling in bear country) by either removing and securely storing the bolt/bolt carrier or using trigger locks. Ammo is stored separately from firearms, not in magazines or in the firearm. Handle a firearm like you would a car. Both require maturity and carry with them the weight of responsibility. The fact you are using something, be it a car or a gun, that has the potential to easily cause serious injury or death to someone else should be all the weight you need.

As for owning a gun for the sake of it... well, I personally don't know anyone who does or would want to, short of someone who collects firearms. I also don't really see an issue with handling them, assuming that a) I own it and b) I'm in a safe and acceptable area to be handling them, like my home, or the range, or out in the wilds.

I honestly don't think we are in complete disagreement with each other, Yinello; at least, I hope not. I'm not complete anti-gun control, but at the same time I don't want to see a sport I very much enjoy drowned in bureaucracy and negative connotations. I want something that's effective, but doesn't punish law-abiding gun owners.

Overall I take these arguments too personally and am sorry for being rather combative.

Edit: Lordy how did that take me an hour to write._________________Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while, I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile.

Fritter, I'm with you on that post *except* for the "stored in an inoperable condition" part. The first and most important reason I own guns is for home defense (I've shared the actual story that led to my first purchase* before on these forums, though I can again). If they're not ready to go, it's no different than not owning them at all, with respect to home defense. Worse, actually, as it could lead to arming bad guys, post-robbery. As it is, I keep two guns loaded (though with safeties on) hidden in the most frequented parts of the house. There are no children in my household (things will change when there are), and if we have people over who are drinking, the weapons get locked up.

*technically it was my second gun, but my first was an 18th century musket. I don't think it really counts_________________“Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation”
yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

Having fired modern muskets, I can confirm they are terrifying. Seriously, I would rather be shot with a .30-06 than the half-inch lead ball lobbed by the black powder rifle I used._________________“Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation”
yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

Never hunted with one. Actually, I've never gone hunting. I'm starting to want to try boar hunting, though - I like the meat, and they are an outright menace. Regardless, black powder rfiles are the most fun weapons I've gotten to try so far. Regardless, seeing what they do to solid targets, compared to modern bullets versus the same targets? Horrific.

The biggest difference I have found between black powder and cased bullets is that there is a tiny bit of a delay in black powders. Sure, it's a split second, but sometimes that's all the matters when hunting.

Also that oh so satisfying crack of the ignition of the powder, and the smell.

Fritter, I'm with you on that post *except* for the "stored in an inoperable condition" part. The first and most important reason I own guns is for home defense (I've shared the actual story that led to my first purchase* before on these forums, though I can again). If they're not ready to go, it's no different than not owning them at all, with respect to home defense. Worse, actually, as it could lead to arming bad guys, post-robbery. As it is, I keep two guns loaded (though with safeties on) hidden in the most frequented parts of the house. There are no children in my household (things will change when there are), and if we have people over who are drinking, the weapons get locked up.

At least you lock them up if there are people over who are drinking, and you don't have children. And, assuming they are hidden, the chances of someone finding them during a break-in would be pretty low I imagine. Given those circumstances, I don't think I'd have much of an issue with storing them ready to use. It's more people who have children or other people in the house who shouldn't be handling guns without supervision who really need to be careful, and gun collectors who are a prime target for burglary._________________Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while, I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile.

Us being overly sensitive to representations of guns isn't really relevant, is it? I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who supports an anti-weapon-shaped-pastry-in-our-schools agenda.

On the other hand, those armed guards the NRA wants in schools sometimes accidentally discharge their firearms inside the school._________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman

The worst of the 'offenses' I linked, as I see it, was the kid who changed the desktop to an image with a gun on it. Did he REALLY require more than a verbal reprimand and made to use a different background? Maybe revoke his right to chose a background and give him a plain desktop with say the school logo. Maybe a single afternoon detention? Saturday detention? Multiple detentions? How about writing an essay on gun violence? In school suspension? The punishment did not fit the crime; even if it's some zero tolerance bullshit, then it's a bad policy.

Also, what if he was, say going to school on a sports scholarship, or maybe he was a big college football fan, he might have chosen this logo:

If he went to the high school where my mom drives bus, this would be his high school logo:

As long as these sorts of ridiculous punishments are being condoned and handed out as part of our response to our gun issue, it is very relevant.

We have this serious issue with guns, a bunch of stuff need to be done.
Punishing elementary kids for making 'gun shaped cookies' is not the answer, to anything. School administrators standing behind a 'zero tolerance policy' are causing WAY more problems than they are preventing._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

Last edited by Darqcyde on Sun Mar 10, 2013 1:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

To be fair, it wasn't an armed guard as in a privately contracted security firm. It was an actual police officer._________________Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while, I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile.

Just some inferred concepts with absolutely no research done whatsoever:
Densely-populated (in other words, urban) area = more violence (more suicide, too, since nobody seems to have solid stats disproving Durkheim)
More violence = more homicides.

Carrying knives is generally a better deterrent unless you're in a really bad spot, but I imagine the idea of carrying a gun or having one at home is similar to a woman carrying pepper spray.

More violence also implies the presence of gangs and drugs. They kind of work in a complex system, so I guess it's kind of hard to tell which comes first.

Guns are the weapon of choice for drug transactions that go south.

Guns work very well when you need to make a civilian militia. "But we don't need one, we have the army, you conspiracy nut," you say. The 2nd Amendment was created to ensure that no laws would be made that would impair the young US' ability to form a civilian offensive against the British, which would bolster our forces. However, it was also created as an extra check against the government in the fear that the government would take power away from the people and create an oligarchy or some other form of "tyranny". Similarly, the Constitution was supposed to be a temporary document only lasting as long as the US needed to get on its own two feet and be able to sit down and seriously discuss things. Granted, we've come a long way, but I don't think there's anything terribly wrong with the latter reason for having guns. It's only paranoia if nothing happens, right?

Anyway, that's my two cents. Feel free to disagree/call me a nutcase._________________If at first you don't succeed [in persuading or explaining something to me], then try and try again.

The term you are looking for is "negligently discharge." I don't care if the article uses a phrasing like "the gun went off" in order to imply no agency or bad action on the part of the cop (the article I read did). It was a *negligent* discharge. True accidental discharges are vanishingly rare (Remington 700s had a mechanical defect some years back, the Caracal F has a drop-fire issue right now, etc. - they do happen, even with well-maintained weapons, but not like this).

Also, just for you, darq:

_________________“Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation”
yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.